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All posts tagged: illinois

“Torture can be an open secret in a democratic society. Apparently, successive Chicago police superintendents suppressed internal investigations that revealed torture, successive state’s attorneys knew of the torture but refused to investigate, and the state’s Felony Review Unit knowingly elicited and used tortured confessions. Approximately one-third of the current Cook County criminal court judges are former assistant state’s attorneys or Area 2 detectives who were involved in the torture cases. Courts and the public will also look the other way.” – Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy

This image from Donald Trump’s rally in Bloomington, Illinois last Sunday was the moment my headache went through the roof and I left. Little boys film themselves taunting little girls who were being kicked out for protesting. This is a scary thing to witness when children turn against each other on the encouragement of an American presidential candidate. Today after successes in Florida, Illinois and Missouri but defeat in the critical state of Ohio to Governor John Kasich leaving open the prospect of a brokered convention, Trump threatened riots if he does not get the nomination. This is not maturity worthy of nuclear codes nor is promoting violence domestically presidential. The forces of politically motivated violence are being set in motion by a candidate whose campaign does not require him to leave the tarmac or answer questions from media beyond the scope of prearranged interviews. His rallies resemble “The Jerry Springer Show,” causing Springer himself to remark, “If they are going to do my show, they should start paying me… It’s disgraceful.”

This was a year of terrorist attacks, mass shootings a-plenty, mass exodus from the Middle East, North and East Africa and the AfPak region which does not include India but a small number from Bangladesh, rising xenophobic far right sentiment, and an uptick in hostility towards Muslims unprecedented since immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The far right so far has been kept on the back burner, but the slow slide into what I liken to the Brezhnev years of the Cold War for the Global War on Terror (GWoT) years is upon us. The American presidential elections offer little reason or occasion for hope. The state of affairs in Syria, too, offers little occasion for hope. “Assad must go” has converted into the new “red line,” as US Secretary of State John Kerry concedes Assad can stay because the US has no one else to pluck out of an abyss of alternatives. The whole world has heard of the Islamic State and the international media relishes any opportunity to put the group’s name …

If you follow my Instagram account (@amandarivkin) or my photography Facebook page, you have noticed I have been busy the last few days photographing the 2016 Chicago Taxi Driver Calendar. Each day I am featuring one of our calendar cabbies along with some fun facts and highlighting different moments from behind the scenes of our shoot. Taxi drivers provide an essential service like police, firemen, food industry workers or EMTs. Sales of the calendar and Mr. February tote bags (below) will begin at midnight tonight in time for Black Friday in the U.S. Proceeds will benefit the legal costs for a suit against the City of Chicago on behalf of the taxi drivers.

My work, “Sustenance: Chicago and the Food Chain,” is on display this week at Loyola University Chicago’s Damen Student Center, 2nd Floor during Hunger Week. Commissioned by Art Works Projects, “Sustenance” examines issues around the food supply and child nutrition in Chicago and the state of Illinois. The work debuted at Art Works Projects’ studio gallery in Chicago in January and previously toured at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, Italy for a month starting late August thanks to generous support from the U.S. Consulate Milan and Grosvenor Capital Management.

August 27 – September 20 Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci ART WORKS Projects, in collaboration with the U.S. Consulate General in Milan, is pleased to present an Italian tour of the exhibit Sustenance: Chicago and the Food Chain, documenting the realities of food access in Chicago through the eyes of local children at home, in school, and in their communities. Bringing this important story to international audiences, this exhibit with photography by Amanda Rivkin explains Chicago’s place within global agricultural practices and policies, and highlights the city’s many innovative programs working to enhance children’s relationships with nutrition and healthy food. A supplemental feature of photographs from Marwen students adds young Chicagoans’ perspectives on the topics of food and nutrition. After a successful run in the ART WORKS Projects’ Chicago studio, which attracted more than twenty local organizations and hundreds of visitors, the exhibit will now travel to Milan in conjunction with Expo Milano 2015: “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.” As part of the “Expo in città” programming through the …